


A Study on Mercy

by FenVallas



Series: Revasel Lavellan [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Pre-Relationship, minor OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3859588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/FenVallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chant of Light teaches we should show mercy to our enemies, but the actions of a fellow Elf mean more to Revasel the hollow human scriptures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study on Mercy

Revasel watched Cassandra Pentaghast strike the wooden training dummy again and again, the muscles in her arms flexing, her brows drawn together in a tight line. Cassandra grunted, sweat forming on her brow, but did not stop moving, not even for a moment. It reminded her of being a young mage, Deshanna pushing her to her limits, attempting to increase her resistance to Spirits.

Things had become so much more complex in the last few weeks.

Less than a month ago, she had been fishing with her brother in a small pond near their camp, a moment of respite from their duties. They had laughed about the things the always laughed about, and even the Mage Templar War had seemed like a distant threat, something that could not possibly touch a clan of Dalish Elves who roved the wilderness of the Free Marches.

Now, Revasel prepared herself for a journey to Val Royeaux in order to speak to the Clerics of the Chantry in an attempt to come to an accord about the political and religious status of the Inquisition. It was a situation she was only in because she had been placed into the position of the rumored Herald of Andraste due to a scar seared into her left palm through unknown means, a scar that shackled her to the Breach, and thus to the Inquisition.

“Tell me about yourself, Herald,” Cassandra grunted, her practice blade thumping against the wood once more before she straightened and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “If we are to work together, I feel we should come to know one another better. In any case, I…”

Cassandra shifted uncomfortably and cleared her throat, glancing away from Rey. This woman was graceful in her movements, controlled and powerful, but her words were clumsy, and she lacked social graces.

Honestly, Rey understood. There had been a time when she had cared much less about the way she was seen by others, but she had been forced to grow out of that when she had been chosen as Deashanna’s First. Someone in her position had to be able to navigate people, whether she liked it or not.

“I am sorry for how I treated you before,” Cassandra managed at last. “I want to apologize. I was too hasty in my judgements and I feel our relationship has suffered for it. I want you to be able to trust me, if possible.”

Revasel didn’t say so, but she did trust Cassandra. Her intentions had been honest, and it was hard to picture a woman like The Seeker being able to successfully tell a lie or manipulate her way through anything. She was so earnest and hardworking that it was almost painful.

“Well… What do you want to know?” Rey asked, leaning against another of the dummies, watching Cassandra’s face carefully, searching it for signs of anger or discomfort. “To be honest, there’s not much about my past that you couldn’t learn from a report.”

“On the contrary,” Cassandra placed her wooden practice blade on the ground and picked up her scabbard, sword tucked firmly within, seeming to weigh it in her hands, “there is much about you one could only learn from speaking to you. A report does not tell me the sort of woman you are, only gives me an account of your life.”

“I grew up primarily in the Free Marches,” Rey’s eyes flickered out to the horizon, where she imagined the scattered forest glades of her childhood instead of pine trees snapping in the harsh mountain wind. “We traveled the borders between territories so we couldn’t be attacked without inciting a war. It was the idea of a Keeper long before Deshanna, but we’ve kept to our paths ever since, developing an established trade route with the sheml—ah, humans.”

Raising her hand, Rey let the sensation of magic tingle up and down her arm, watching the Mark flare in the muted light of the early morning. Cassandra said nothing, watching her with dark eyes, waiting for her to speak again.

And speak Rey did.

“I’m First, which is a bit like a Right or Left hand, tending the Divine’s flock,” she didn’t look to Cassandra to try to read the expression on her face, though she was certain stock would be there – The Dalish weren’t supposed to know about the Chantry, but Rey had done her research before leaving the Clan. “Our flock is smaller, but we tend it best we can, and much like those in the hierarchy of the Chantry, we’ve sworn a vow of chastity.”

“So you were a religious leader?” Cassandra asked, sounding a bit surprised. “I didn’t think you were… Ah… You don’t seem like the sort, Herald.”

“Lavellan, please, or just Revasel will do.”

Rey paused and considered how to answer, trying to figure out how to explain that her people didn’t have great buildings to worship, and that nature was their own temple. They carried effigies of their gods as amulets, and in the case of the Dread Wolf, a statute dedicated to his appeasement. Everything the Dalish did was practical and organic. There was nothing institutional about their religion, and in fact they had a difficult time agreeing about even the nature of their own gods.

“It’s not like it is here.” Rey let the green blaze on her palm fade and dropped her hand to her side, still unused to the Mark and the way it made every part of her body alert and tense. “We don’t worship in Chantries. Our gods are our way of life, so everything we do is dedicated to them.”

Reaching up a hand, Rey touched her own vallaslin. “These, the Blood Writing that make your people think mine are savages, they’re in honor of our gods. Mine are for the Friend of the Dead, their guide and brother who leads them through the Beyond – Ah, the Fade,” she amended at the confused expression on Cassandra’s face. “My Keeper chose them because she believed I would one day be a friend and guide to my people.”

And look how well ** _that_** had turned out.

“It’s not so odd that I would be a religious leader when my magic sets me apart as uniquely able to care for them in the first place,” she concluded. “It’s just a matter of learning the lore and how to combat the unique threats my people face.”

She reached down to toy idly with the ring on the middle finger of her left hand, leaning back against the training dummy and looking at Cassandra. Rey awaited an answer, watching the human’s face for signs of disgust but finding nothing but comprehension and perhaps a modicum of respect.

“I suppose I do understand you a bit better, then,” Cassandra finally said, nodding. “Like me, you are a woman seeking to protect the things that are important to you. Even if I do not understand your strange gods, I can respect your position.”

Rey offered her an easy smile, and for a moment, she though Cassandra was going to share something more, but their moment was shattered by the sound of raised voices. They weren’t quite shouts, though the voices were angry, and approaching at a rapid pace. Her companion’s eyes narrowed in response, and she placed a hand on the hilt of her blade, which now hung idly at her waist.

Quickly, Rey turned around to see what the commotion was and found Solas advancing toward them, his face schooled into a stony expression, trailed after by a man in thick armor. One of the Templar recruits, Revasel could only assume by the look of angry disapproval etched into his features and the sunburst amulet that she could clearly see against the dark fabric of his cloak.

“I may do magic where I so wish,” Solas was saying, voice tight, his hands clasped into balls at his sides. “You do not have any authority over me, Ser, no more than you do any other mage who has chosen to make their home here.”

His words were resolute, but Rey saw no sign of the angry Templar retreating from a possible fight, especially not with a mage he deemed a threat to the safety of the camp. She glanced to Solas quickly, expecting that he would have to be the reasonable one and back down, but when she looked at him…

Suddenly, his name seemed more appropriate than she could have ever dreamed during their brief conversations. Solas, in that moment, held his head impossibly high, his profile calling to mind images of Emperor Drakon she had seen rendered in paintings on the Chantry’s walls. He looked stately, bordering just on the wrong side of arrogant, his blue eyes as sharp and as hard as precious gems, his lips pressed into a tight line.

“For the safety of those in Haven, Messere Apostate, I must _insist_ —“

Solas didn’t allow him further chance to speak, taking a step forward that prompted the Templar to step back, even though Solas was a fair two heads shorter than he was. “The _safety_ of those in Haven, Ser? Do not speak to me of the safety of those in Haven when they very fabric of reality as you know it is unraveling about us.” His words were unhurried, and spoken in an even tone, but a flash of teeth past his lips was enough to lend him the air of snarling without any of the noise. “I have volunteered my expertise freely, and I am no Circle mage, that you can cow me into following orders.”

It seemed the Templar wouldn’t be cowed either, visibly bristling at the words. Whoever he had been before, his accent betrayed him as Orlesian, and his face marked him as young, perhaps no older than her own brother. Youthful pride, not the stubborn dignity that Solas bore, drove him to a hasty response, rage burning in his eyes.

Cassandra remained frozen, her surprise at Solas clearly momentarily overpowering her ability to intercede.

Rey, for her part, was sure she could only make the situation worse, as a mage herself.

“And how am I to trust you won’t parley with demons? If you do not submit to the rules set forth by Commander Cullen for the mages abiding here, I will be forced to remove you from Haven myself.”

Solas’ eyes flashed, and for a moment, Rey wasn’t certain how he would respond. Words seemed to hang in the balance, long enough that the Templar had sensed he’d made a grave mistake, but in a second the predatory fury that slithered across Solas’ features was schooled behind a careful mask and the Elven man smiled.

“I suppose I should make you aware that I outstrip you in rank,” and when he said the words, it almost sounded as though he was burdened to admit them, as if they were too heavy for him to bear. “If you doubt my claim, perhaps you should ask your superiors?”

Not accidentally, his eyes strayed to Cassandra, and the Templar visibly paled, noticing their audience for the first time.

“I can account for Solas, Ser Legrand,” said Cassandra, though the look she gave Solas said that she wouldn’t ever extend him this kind of courtesy again. “He is the healer who applied his skills to the Herald’s recovery and discovered the secret to sealing the Breach.”

“An Elf?” Legrand sounded almost incredulous, but one glance in here direction forced him to visibly swallow his words and fidget uncomfortably. “I… I mean, yes, of course, Lady Pentaghast.”

Excusing himself quickly, he shuffled away, Solas watching him with something like disdain on his features before he cast his eyes to the two of them for a brief moment and then walked away toward the lake as brusquely as he could manage. Cassandra looked at her for a long moment before she jerked her head after him and then turned to her dummies and the din of sparring soldiers.

“You should go after him. I doubt he will listen to me, but you may have a chance, perhaps,” Cassandra did not look at her, but Rey could almost see her eyes, the downturn of her lips, so disapproving. “I believe he is beginning to respect you, Lavellan.”

Rey didn’t say it as she bid Cassandra farewell and set out after Solas through the snow (noting somewhere in her mind that he walked as light as a hunter, leaving no tracks), but she hoped that Cassandra was right, because it seemed Solas was the sort of man slow to respect anyone.

 

* * *

 

 

It could have turned out much worse, he reminded himself.

Legrand, the fool, could have provoked someone far less likely to back away from a challenge. One of the other mages in camp, raw from the recent wound of the Conclave, could have easily sparked a division in the camp and signed Inquisition’s death warrant. The organization was too young, a shoot struggling to rise through the earliest spring thaw, to suffer from the actions of fools at this moment.

And yet he felt offended by the slight, an emotion in and of itself that greatly disturbed him. There was a time he would have humiliated the man for such an offense, truly humiliated him, and though he preferred to tell himself that those days had long since passed… Well, he knew there was a part of him that was still that proud, a part of him that longed to be right, to come out on top in every situation, no matter the cost to those around him.

He was so selfish it would have disgusted him, did he not have more pressing issues to occupy him than the deficiencies in his own personality.

Solas was not so distracted, however, that he did not hear her follow him. She was quiet, but it was clear she had not been trained for silence (something that he entertained fixing for a mere moment, though he doubted she would accept any offer _he_ made), and his ears were keen enough to hear her trailing behind him by several paces.

He only stopped once they had made the trek around the frozen lake, sitting down upon the stump of what had once been some great tree. Looking out at the opposite shore, Solas paid his companion no mind even when she came to stand beside him, preferring to share silence rather than be burdened with uncomfortable conversation about something he would rather put behind him than dwell upon.

After a long moment, he heard her shift, clearing her throat and pounding her first against her chest as if in an attempt to dislodge something. “So… Uh… How goes this whole hermit business? With the not… interacting with people?”

“Is that your attempt at small talk, Herald?” Solas glanced toward her out of the corner of his eye, watching as the tips of her ears turned red from more than the cold.

He couldn’t help the lopsided smile that tugged up one side of his mouth.

“No, that’s my attempt at distracting you,” she smiled easily, though a bit abashedly, crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing absently at her shoulders. “Sorry, it’s a pretty poor attempt; you just looked so… serious.”

“He didn’t say anything unexpected,” Solas turned his full attention to her, searching her face and unwilling to admit that he was always somewhat severe, at least in his most recent eons. “Apostate, abomination… Elf. I am used to it.”

“I understand that. The shemlen aren’t very…” She waved her hand, seeming to search for the words. “Even the good ones can sometimes be…”

“Foolhardy and ignorant?” Solas arched his eyebrows and watched her face register shock before she grinned unabashedly.

“I didn’t know how you would react to that, to be honest, and I wouldn’t have been so nice.” A brief silence passed between them, and once again she seemed unsure what to say, shuffling from foot to foot as her eyes scanned the horizon. “Being here is a bit hard for me. There are no… Really no other Elves who will look at me like…”

Solas sensed it was a vulnerable moment for her, and so he softened his own heart. Turning her away would do him no good, not if he wanted to be able to influence her decisions, even in benign ways.

Becoming her confidant was of the utmost importance.

“I guess I didn’t realize that most of them really worshiped Andraste, that to them, the fact that I’m Dalish is just as incredible as the fact that I walked out of the Fade.” The Herald’s fingers reached up and brushed against the twining lines of her _vallaslin_ , a death’s head and twisted vines dancing across her face like a plague sweeping across the countryside. “I could speak Elvish to them until Falon’Din took the breath from my lungs, and it would do me no good for all that they would understand me.”

“Such is the corrosion of Elvhen culture, both natural and deliberate,” Solas replied, paying no mind to how she called the language _Elvish_.

How was she to know that the word Elf was another Human invention? A creation by those who didn’t wish to use slurs (rattus, knife-ear… the list went on), shortened from the name they had called themselves – Elvhen.

They could not even remember who they had been during the time of Halamshiral.

“Deliberate?” The Herald drew in on herself and Solas moved over ever so slightly, allowing her to sink to the stump beside him. “We have always been told it was deliberate, but here the books talk about how the Exalted March was a **_mercy_** ,” the word was venom on her lips. “Save the heathens, the pagans, with their foreign gods and their pointed ears. Were they not better as slaves?”

“Better they spill their blood in the pursuit of freedom than bear a living death.”

The words sat between them, heavy as a stone, the Herald shifting her bright eyes to look upon him. Solas honestly wasn’t sure how she had received the words and wondered for a long moment if he should regret them, unable to read her clearly, though he was usually quite excellent at understanding body language.

“I wonder if you’re right? “ When at last she spoke, her voice was small. “If we fought now, where would we go? Is there even anything left for us to reclaim? It feels like…” The Herald sighed and her eyes slipped closed. “As long as the shemlen are around, we’ll never be free.”

“It’s not the shemlen in and of themselves,” Solas let his eyes stray past her, back toward Haven, where he could still see the steeple of the Chantry against the sky. “No. Not the shemlen.”

Her green eyes traced the features of his face, as if seeing him for the first time, and she offered him a smile, the first she had ever given him that felt truly effortless. Solas, in return, offered her a small smile of his own, though he felt that it was likely marred by the weight of his thoughts.

“I’m… glad you’re here, Solas,” she told him, quickly looking back out to the lake. “I miss my clan. I miss the feeling of solidarity between us, the understanding. I… Feel so foolish admitting this. I’m a grown woman.”

“Adults do not get lonely?” Solas arched his eyebrows and inclined his head. “It is only natural, being so far away from the only life you have ever known. I am glad my presence here could offer you some comfort.”

Silence fell between them again, and Solas, wishing to secure even a tenuous friendship with her, reached out.

“Herald, if you have time… Perhaps you would like to hear of my journeys in the Fade? There have things I have seen of The People that you may find interesting.”

For a long moment she simply looked at him, and then she nodded, a smile making her look far less oppressed than she had a moment before. “And spirits. You promised to tell me more about them.”

“Yes,” he acknowledged with a small but genuine smile of his own. “You are correct, Herald. I believe I did.”


End file.
